


take it slow

by idekman



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Fix-it fic, M/M, Of a sorts, and a cat, and also steals some things, in which credence starts to make his own family, just give my boy credence a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idekman/pseuds/idekman
Summary: Credence feels as if he’s been swallowed by some huge, cavernous thing, as if a pit in the hollow of his chest is eating him from the inside out. It’s not him. It’s not Grindelwald. It’s just – just Graves, just a man alone in his kitchen drinking whiskey after a nightmare, staring at his own bare feet.-Credence and Graves, after it all.





	1. Chapter 1

**[PART ONE]**

 

He is six months gone and half-wild when the letter comes.

- 

For the first week he wanders New York. He is a man reborn, and so everything is new to him now. Sure, he feels tired – sure, he feels as if his limbs are pulling and pulling and pulling until he doesn’t know how he manages to put one foot in front of the other every day. But the city is new and open to him, and he stares at all the faces around him unabashed, where before he kept his head ducked and eyes shuttered.

He sleeps where he can, when he can. On benches, in door ways. Something crackles within him, every now and then, that helps keep the worst of the chill away.

He’s at the library when she finds him. He’s been staring at the books for an hour now; hasn’t dared to take one from its shelf yet. The library is a little musty and this room is small, late-afternoon light turning his skin amber as he stalks another row.

He raises his hand. Maybe, just to touch –

‘Credence?’

He blinks. There’s an odd, sharp twist in the bottom of his stomach and he’s not sure whether to run or to lash out so instead he stills, entirely frozen. Miss Goldstein reaches a hand out. He flinches, instinctively, and she pulls back. There’s a smile on her face – her usual smile, gentle and sad and, he thinks, perhaps pitying.

‘It’s good to see you again, Credence.'

Definitely pitying. But she’s kind, and she doesn’t try to touch him again, so when she turns to stroll the aisle he follows.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Miss Goldstein tells him, scanning all the titles, not really looking at him. It makes it easier to follow, to consider her as she walks. She brushes her fingers absently over a few of the spines, as if it were a simple thing. As if it were easy. He copies the motion, feels leather against his knuckles, the back of his hand, and finds comfort in its familiarity. ‘What are you doing here?’

Miss Goldstein has come to a stop and he stumbles, stares until she repeats her question.

‘I –’ he looks around at the books, going on and on for what feel like miles. Miss Goldstein is very smart. It should be obvious, he thinks. ‘I was looking for something to read.’ Miss Goldstein nods. Waits. He is expected to continue talking. His voice feels very small, and his lips are dry, sticking against each other gummily. ‘I wasn’t sure where to start.’

Miss Goldstein’s shoulders soften, just a fraction.

‘I always think, when one is unsure – it’s best to start with Austen.’

They take the book to the desk and the librarian helps him start an account, gives him a little paper card and writes the date he has to bring the book back for. She asks for his address to write on the form she’s filling out and, before he can even open his mouth, Miss Goldstein gives the name of street, not too far away.

When they step outside, it’s raining, but Miss Goldstein mutters something and the two of them stay dry.

‘How did you know?’ He asks, quietly. He knows, without her having to tell him, where they’re going. MACUSA. He doesn’t remember much from everything that happened _(pain and screaming and some part of him ripped out from where it was tucked behind his ribs and curled into his heart)_ but he remembers that. 

‘Know what?’

‘That I would be at the library.’

‘I didn’t,’ Miss Goldstein tells him, after a moment.

‘Oh.’ It seems a very small word. It fills space. He didn’t use to speak just to stop it from being quiet – but now, talking to Miss Goldstein, who speaks so easily, so freely, he allows his words to take up a little wedge of the expanse between them. ‘Then why –’

‘Sometimes, Credence,’ Miss Goldstein interrupts, taking an abrupt left, ‘someone wants, very simply, to sit down and read a good book.’ She tilts her head to one side as they come to a stop by a doorway. ‘Particularly when you have a sister as talkative as mine.’ 

 

He thinks Miss Goldstein has brought him to MACUSA right up until he’s sat down on her sofa and a wide-eyed blonde has pressed a cup of tea into his hands. She introduces herself as Queenie and flits into the kitchen, clattering about absently as Miss Goldstein disappears into the other room. Queenie chatters, but he’s not sure whether it’s to Miss Goldstein or him, so he remains silent and tries not to listen.

After a little while, she falls quiet and he pulls the book out. The apartment is all soft tones and gentle light and the sofa he’s sat on seems to be drawing him down, so that he can’t help to lean back as he turns the book over in his hands. He wonders if –

‘It’s very good.’

He blinks.

Queenie is hovering, a good few meters away. He stares up at her. She stares back.

‘I mean –’ she breaks off – and then, in a darting, quick movement, she comes to sit besides him. She smells slightly bitter, of lemons and wood smoke with an undertone that might be icing sugar, or pastry. ‘It’s a classic, right? And Austen? She was this incredible broad - British, too! They have all the best writers, dontcha think?’ He blinks again. ‘Which one have you got there – oh, _Emma!_ That one’s my favourite! Everyone says _Pride and Prejudice_ is the best, but –’

Miss Goldstein, who has been speaking on the phone just loud enough for Credence to make out the occasional murmur but not loud enough for him to hear what she’s actually saying, pauses in her conversation and calls through to the two of them;

‘Queenie! Please stop harassing Credence.' 

Queenie stands, and his gaze immediately flits to his knees. He had quite liked her sat beside him; she’d felt strong. Tough, in a way he wasn’t. 

‘I like the way you think, Mister.’

He looks up so fast he thinks he might have cricked his neck.

She winks at him, and then she’s gone, disappeared behind some doorway, and he’s left alone.

He reads – and then he reads and reads and reads, and thinks, _I’ve never read something like this in my life_ and then thinks, _I’m never taking this book back to the library_ – and then he must fall asleep, because when he wakes someone’s wrapped a blanket around him. His shoes sit neatly by his feet, which means either Queenie or Miss Goldstein must have taken them off, and he finds that so inexplicably embarrassing that he stands and slips them on.

It’s dark out still – just light enough, perhaps, to be close to dawn, and he stays by the window for a little while. He taps his knuckles, ever-so-gently, against the glass, lets his hand still as the condensation wets his skin. It feels so odd, still, to be able to touch, to test, without fear, to pause by the window to watch the street below just beginning to wake up – there’s a milk man with a little cart, and a kid dragging a stack of newspapers, and so many microscopic things he can’t begin to fathom but know are out there, laid out before him – without having to explain himself.

‘Credence?’

He starts – but it’s just Miss Goldstein, of course, and when he turns she’s somehow produced a soft bauble of light from her wand, the glow filling the room a touch.

(It reminds him, of course, of Graves. Everything magic does. It even smells of him; cold, metallic. Like blood.)

‘I thought I heard you up.’ She comes to join him, looks past the window, past the street. Her eyebrows pull together, a little wrinkle, and he wonders if she’s seeing something he can’t.

When she turns, it’s a brisk movement, and she seems to have lost some of the pity left over from the library, from his ma’s house. He likes that. 

‘You ever been to London, kid?’ 

-

Before he leaves, he empties out his pockets and digs in the folds of the little bag he carries around with him and even peels his emergency dollar bill out of his sock and puts it all in a little envelope with a note apologising to the librarian, and gives it to Miss Goldstein. He asks her if she would buy a replacement of _Emma_ for the library. For some reason, this makes Queenie cry, and she has to run to the bathroom to blow her nose.

-

Miss Goldstein gives him a book to pass along to Mr. Scamander when he gets to London, but he finishes _Emma_ too quickly and takes to reading it himself. It’s like reading in another language. He takes out the pencil he keeps in his bag and underlines big, long chunks of text and circles words he doesn’t understand, and by the time the passage to London is done the whole thing is covered in scribbles and little notes and he is no closer to understanding any of it.

Mr. Scamander looks a little like he’d remembered. His memory had picked out a shock of ginger hair, freckles and a sharp frame. The big, blue coat, the heavy case; those were all things he’d missed.

The kind voice, too, seems unfamiliar.

There are too many people at the dock, too busy, and he can’t help but start back when Mr. Scamander claps a hand on his shoulder in greeting. Just like Miss Goldstein, he steps back, swings his hand to his side easily and doesn’t touch him again as they walk.

He thinks they might apparate – Miss Goldstein had used the world, and Queenie had explained it, one morning over breakfast – but instead Mr. Scamander hails a cab and shuffles him in. He jumps, a little, as the engine starts up and he must look strange and pale because Mr. Scamander leans over and asks, very softly; 

‘Are you alright?’

The question surprises him. He takes a beat, thinks about why he feels so strange – a new city, the way Mr. Scamander had looked at him when he’d saw he only had the one small bag, the way his seat seems to vibrate with the hum of the car’s engine, the smooth, sickly motion that reminds him of the boat – and nods. 

‘Yes. I’ve never been in a car before, is all.’ 

Mr. Scamander stares at him for just a beat too long, then looks down at his knees. He has the same look Queenie had on her face just before she’d started crying. 

- 

Mr. Scamander’s apartment is surprisingly large and he has a whole spare room for Newt, with a bed and clean sheets and an entire shelf full of books. 

‘Tina – Miss Goldstein,’ Mr. Scamander corrects himself, awkwardly, ‘mentioned on the phone – that you like books. I put some of the really good ones there for you – just enough to get started with.’

He wonders if he’ll get to keep them. First the library book, then Miss Goldstein’s gift. He has started a habit of – 

Ma would call it stealing. A sin. He likes to think of it as appropriating them for a better use.

Mr. Scamander – Newt, he has to remind himself, repeating it in his head over and over until he doesn’t stumble over it anymore – gets them fish and chips for dinner. It smells like heaven and comes wrapped in newspaper and is apparently an English delicacy. Newt is very quiet, which he quite likes, and when he does speak does so softly, and so most of dinner is spent in a sort of comfortable silence.

Credence eats slowly and carefully, and when Newt tells him that Miss Goldstein mentioned a book and would he mind fetching it after dinner, he only blushes a little.

-

Newt doesn’t mind about the book, or his questions – or how his answers seem to lead, somehow, to more questions that Newt responds to at great length, growing more and more animated the more Credence asks. He helps Newt put up a new shelf in his room which they full with books about science and history and exotic creatures and –

And magic. Just one. _A History of Magic_. It sits on the end of the shelf, cluttered between a book end in the shape of a dragon and a Nomaj book about Washington (the place, Newt explains, not the person), and every now and then he’ll look at it. He considers taking it off its shelf. He doesn’t. He won’t.

-

It takes two months before he picks it up and turns to the first page. It seems to hum in the palm of his hand.

-

London is nothing like New York. At first, on the surface, they’d seemed the same. Tall buildings, busy streets, rude people.

But London is older. Gentler, somehow. Christmas turns over to New Year’s turns to a dark January, but it rains more than it snows. Sometimes, when it’s really cold, the sun comes out too, and if he wakes early enough he gets to see the sun rise and glittering off the frost just before it all starts to melt, and that’s when this city is most like New York. On those days, he goes for walks with Newt, who seems to spend a lot of time at various Universities or libraries or professors’ offices – some Nomaj, some not – and Credence comes with him. 

Every now and then he’ll take notes at Newt’s meetings, but usually he sits on the floor in the corridor and reads. He’s made his way through Austen (and wrote a note at the end of one of Newt’s letters to Miss Goldstein to inform Queenie that yes, he did prefer _Emma_ to _Pride and Prejudice_ ) and moved on to Dickens, as recommended by Newt. 

The day after he starts reading _A History of Magic_ , Newt asks him if he’d like a job working for a friend of his at a library ten minutes walk away.

He’s aware, of course, that he’s being kept an eye on. Newt hardly ever leaves the apartment building without him. He spends time alone, but Newt is always in the next room, or in the kitchen or chattering in the corridor outside with his neighbour. 

He doesn’t mind it, so much. Winter slips into spring. The sun is out more often. He walks to and from work alone. His hair grows long, so long it hangs in his eyes and Newt asks him if he wants to get it cut, but he shakes his head, lets it grow to his ears, and then down past his jaw.

There’s a freedom to it. It’s long, like a girl’s, and he hardly ever brushes it until one day he looks into Newt’s rust-spotted mirror and doesn’t recognise himself. He has become some strange, wild thing, incompatible with the boy he was back in New York. He grows some stubble along his jaw because he thinks Ma would hate it, and some days he pulls his hair off his face with elastic or ribbon in a big, messy bun.

One day Newt tries to plait it, but he can’t stand the feeling of his hands constantly against the back of his neck _(hand on his neck, voice in his ear, breath on his jaw, we’ve lived in the shadows for too long)_ and he has to bathe afterwards, to rid himself of the hot, crawling sensation under his skin.  

Six months since New York. His hair is long and messy and when he doesn’t work he roams London, buys books at peculiar markets and occasionally speaks to strangers, helps Newt with his work and eats odd fruits from street stands in Diagon Alley, the juices dripping down his chin. He wonders if people are staring at him, asking _who is that strange boy_. He can’t bring himself to care.

He is six months gone and half-wild when the letter comes.

-

Newt has a big window seat that’s perfect for reading in the afternoon. The space gets warm as the late afternoon sun hits it and if he shuts the curtains a little he can watch the way the dust particles dance, strung up in the beam of light. _Not much else can be more beautiful than that_ , he thinks.

He dozes – as he often does in that spot – and when he wakes everything is golden and Newt has a hand on his shoulder.

‘Credence.’ He swipes at his eyes, straightens. There’s a strange crick in his neck and an odd, sickly feeling in his stomach. Ma used to say something about dozing during the day – slovenly, gluttony, laziness, a sin. Something. For Ma, everything was a sin. He forgets more and more of what she taught him every day. Something about London and its air and its sun has allowed him to rinse her from his brain, somehow. On days like this, where the air is warm and the only thing to remind him of America is his own accent, he can forget New York ever existed at all.

‘You have a letter, Credence.’

He sits up a little more. Newt looks worried.

‘From Miss Goldstein?’ Newt shakes his head.

‘No. From here – England.’

Newt holds out the envelope. He stares at it. Inexplicably, his hands have begun to shake.

‘I don’t –’ _I don’t want to read it._ He can’t say that. It sounds pathetic. His voice is gravelly and a little cracked from sleep. ‘Could you read it for me?’

Newt nods, waits for Credence to shift over so he can sit. The tear of the envelope sounds awfully loud in the quiet of the room.

He watches Newt’s eyes scan the paper. Some of the colour bleaches from his face. His eyes go to the top of the page, and read it again. It can’t be a very long letter.

‘Newt –’

‘Credence.’ Newt’s voice has never sounded this firm before. ‘Credence, I think –’ He breaks off. He swoops in a breath, then lets it out. His chest quakes. ‘I think you should let me take this letter, and throw it away. I don’t think you should read it.’

Newt’s face is drawn and serious. There’s an intensity running like a livewire across his shoulders, down his spine, that Credence can feel coming off him in waves. He should listen to Newt. Let him throw away the note and

And yet.

‘May I see it, please.’

-

It’s an invitation, rather than a letter. A calling card, really.

It reads;

 _To Mr C. Barebone_ ,

_I would like to meet. I have an apartment in London, near St James’ Park. I have included the full address on the back of this envelope._

_Yours,_

_Mr. P. Graves_

-

Newt asks him not to go. Says that it could be Grindelwald, somehow.

Credence agrees. It would be sensible to get rid of the letter, to never look at it again.

He lets Newt throw it on the fire.

And yet.

_(He’s already memorised the address from the back of the envelope)._

Every time he thinks about Graves – about Grindelwald – his stomach flips strangely. He thinks he might be ill. He’s distracted, all of the time, now. Can’t work, can’t read, can’t sit still. He sleeps a lot, but then he has strange, strange nightmares

_(hand on his neck, voice in his ear, breath on his jaw, we’ve lived in the shad -)_

that he wakes from drenched in sweat and shaking. There’s one where he wakes to Newt shaking him. He’d been screaming. His throat feels raw with it, but he doesn’t remember what he’d dreamt about. Only that it had been long, and that he’d been scared that he would never wake up.

After two weeks of this – two weeks of falling asleep on his lunch break at work, of Newt’s concerned looks over the dinner table, after Queenie on the telephone dancing around _are you alright_ for an hour – he wakes at two am. He puts his shoes on, and his coat. He takes his keys, softly, from their hook by the front door. He leaves.

It only takes half an hour to walk. The streets are lit intermittently, and every soft pool of light he walks into is a comfort.

When he comes to a stop, it’s under a street lights. Every now and then, it blinkers off and on again with an odd, irritating buzz.

He stares at the block of flats. Number thirty-three. There’s a light on in the first floor.

He can’t see much from here. There’s a net curtain covering the window. He should leave. Go home, back to Newt, wait for the address to be forgotten.

_And yet –_

He creeps closer. The light is warm and inviting, spilling out onto the pavement, and the closer he drifts the more his palms tingle, spreading up his elbows and his neck and down his legs until it feels as if he has pins and needles across his his entire body. When he stops, he rests a hand against the rough stone of the building, as if to keep himself upright.

His eyes, instinctively, shutter against the light. He doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to look, to know, doesn’t want to –

It’s not Grindelwald.

Graves makes for an oddly small figure. Evidently he’s been found waking up from sleep – maybe a dream. His hair is ruffled, longer than Credence remembers, and there are big, dark circles under his eyes, like little purple bruises. Nightmares, then, maybe. He is in long pyjama trousers and a thick-knit jumper, as if pulled on to protect against an abrupt chill. He leans against the counter, sipping gingerly from the glass. Gold liquid; whiskey. Credence watches him shake his head, swipe a hand across his eyes then scrub it through his hair. He bows his head. Credence wonders if he’s wearing slippers, if he’s staring down at his bare feet.

It’s not him.

_It’s not Grindelwald._

He feels as if he’s been swallowed by some huge, cavernous thing, as if a pit in the hollow of his chest is eating him from the inside out. It’s not him. _It’s not him._ It’s just – just Graves, just a man alone in his kitchen drinking whiskey after a nightmare, staring at his own bare feet.

Unconsciously, his hand has drifted up to the glass. Behind him, a fox yowls. Graves starts, spins wildly to the window –

They stare, for one very long second, at each other. Credence eyes blinker shut.

When they open, he’s on the street outside Newt’s apartment. He heaves one breath, feels it rattle through his lungs.

Perhaps ten minutes later, perhaps an hour, Newt careens out onto the street. Credence’s hands are rested on his knees, bent at the middle, trying to regain his breath. He feels as if he’s been split into two small pieces.

Newt is staring at him from the steps that lead up to his apartment building. Credence finally straightens, finally looks up at him.

‘I woke up,’ Newt starts, and Credence spots the thread of anger running through the clench of his jaw, the pull of his eyebrows, ‘and you were _gone,_ Credence –’

‘It wasn’t him.’

Newt stares.

‘ _What.’_

‘I went. And it wasn’t him. It wasn’t Grindlewald. It was –’ it sounds mean, to say it. _Just Graves_. But that’s what he is, without Grindelwald. The both of them, lesser now. Just Graves. Just Credence. ‘It was Graves.’

‘You’re sure?’

Credence nods.

‘You’re _sure_ –’

‘Yes! Yes, I’m sure!’

Newt stares. This is the first time Credence has raised his voice in his six months of being here. He feels everything well up in his throat, anger and fear and relief, overwhelming, bittersweet _relief_ and –

‘Come inside,’ Newt relents. For once, Credence lets him put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

-

Another week goes by. He lets Newt trim his hair, so that it falls just past his shoulders. He had quit his job at the library a little while back and now drifts around the apartment, lost. He’s still having nightmares, still barely sleeps to avoid them. Still wakes up screaming, some days. Most days, maybe. He’s not sure. Newt has stopped coming to wake him up. He reads, more and more, barely leaves his nook by the window, until eventually even his interest in the books fade. Instead, he spends his time staring outside, watching the world go by.

He procures a cat.

That suggests more purpose than the reality of the acquisition. He had gone outside to fetch the milk from the front door step one morning and there was a cat – very small, black, just beginning to grey around the temples. He had opened the door and the cat had followed him, all the way up the stairs, and had not left since then.

He and Newt had sat staring at it for a little while.

‘I’m not sure what the Niffler will make of him,’ Newt had told him, sensibly. Credence had nodded. ‘Perhaps we should take it to a shelter. Or put up signs.’ Credence had nodded again, thinking at the same time that they would not be taking the cat to the shelter. Or be putting up signs. He’d felt the same surge of possessiveness and grasping tightness around his chest that had come with that first copy of _Emma._

He supposes it comes from never having anything that was truly his, so his pilfered odds and ends, scraped together – the stolen book, a little glass paperweight taken stolen from Professor Mifflewatt’s desk the first week he’d come to England, now the cat – have become a strange little collection. Newt had taken him to the shops when he’d first arrived – but he had just found money so strange. When he was still working at the library, he would pay Newt rent. Or, more, at the end of each month he would leave a few notes tucked under a vase in the kitchen and Newt would ignore it for a week and so would he until they were entrenched in some strange, stand-off, both of them refusing to so much as look in the near-vicinity of the vase, until eventually Newt would take half of what he would left and Credence would take the rest back.

Beyond that, Credence buys nothing, despite wanting a great many things. The expensive books that sit, guarded, on the top shelves of Newt’s favourite book shop. The soft, wool jumpers in dark, gentle greens and blues he sees in the windows of the big Nomaj department stores. Inexplicably, he desperately wants new socks. His are perfectly fine – he hasn’t even had to darn them. He thinks this must be want for the sake of wanting, having for the sake of having, something he has never experienced before.

(Or, perhaps, just once.)

He takes gifts, and he steals when he can; parchment from Newt’s office, and a pretty quill made from a feather he’s never seen before that is coloured like an oil slick. Tina and Goldie often sends him books, as many as one a week, and sometimes Newt will bring something home and say _this reminded me of you_ ; a little glass figurine of a man on a horse, or a scratchy record of _Gymnopedie no. 1_ , or a slim book on ancient greek philosophy. He prefers that, to buying something for himself. A gift means someone has thought of him, a random split second of time where he had consumed someone else’s thoughts entirely.

So now he has the stolen cat, and Newt tells him not to feed him milk because it’s bad for him, and so they feed him scraps of meat and leftovers and he gets a little bigger, less scrappy.

After a few days of the both of them calling the cat Cat, Newt asks if he had thought of a name and Credence, automatically, without thinking, answers _Percival_. Newt stiffens but says nothing and they continue to call the cat Cat.

He’s not sure what wakes him up that day, head leaned against the cool of the glass in the window. But one moment he is asleep, the next Percival Graves is stood on the other side of the street, frowning up and down the road. He is dressed a little more like the Percival he remembers now. Smart jacket, smart shirt. He has the beginnings of a beard, softening everything, and it’s just enough of a reassurance that he doesn’t go spiralling.

Graves looks up at him. Clocks him. Raises a hand, gingerly, in greeting.

Credence tilts his head to one side. Newt is out at a meeting. Cat is nestled by his side and, absently, he scoops him up, grabs his keys from the hook, and heads downstairs.

It’s not until he steps outside and clicks the door shut behind him that he realises he’s not wearing any shoes, that he must look like a vagrant in a scrappy shirt and trousers that have a hole near the hem. But the concrete feels warm and good against the soles of his feet.

Graves is staring at him, though.

‘Jesus.’

Graves looks like he’s been hit in the stomach with a sledgehammer.

‘Jesus Christ.’

Graves is speaking around a cigarette and his hands are shaking and for a moment Credence feels perfectly calm, until he realises he’s trembling all over and Cat is wriggling in his arms from where he’s holding him too tightly.

‘It’s really you.’

‘You shouldn’t have come.’ His voice, at least, is smooth. Graves pulls back like Credence has just slapped him.

‘I –’

Graves cuts himself off, scowling up at the sky, which is blue and clear, and then across at the flowerbeds in front of Newt’s building, and then finally directs his scowl to Credence, where it then softens and slips away entirely.

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

Credence nods, then, so he doesn’t have to look at Graves’ big, dark eyes, which are awfully familiar and make him want to be sick. He looks down at Cat instead. Cat seems fairly happy to ignore him, but he scritches at his ears anyway.

‘I just – I saw your picture in the newspaper, and – well, Tina –’

Graves cuts himself off again. It must be to do with the look on Credence’s face right now, the way he’s staring at him.

‘Miss Goldstein told you where to find me?’ He’s not sure how to feel about that. Graves nods and Credence dips his head. Acquiescence.

‘I think you should go, now,’ he murmurs, more to Cat than to Graves. Graves, who has spent this entire conversation stood a good five meters away from him yet somehow feels entirely too close already, takes a step towards him. Instinctively, Credence takes a step back and tries to ignore the way Graves looks like his entire chest is caving in on itself at the reaction.

‘I just wanted to say that – that I was sorry.’

Credence tilts in a breath. Holds it for a count of two. Releases it, lets it hiss out through his teeth, watches the way it ruffles the fur on top of Cat’s head. Forces himself to look up at Graves, eyes crinkled against the sun. Graves is looking back, unabashed, hands jammed in his pockets. Absently, Credence realises that he’s taller than Graves. Must be all of half an inch in it, but – still. He’d always seemed so _big_. Before.

‘Sorry for what?’

Graves stares some more.

‘I’m not sure. I just know that I am.’

Credence dips his head again. Turns and puts the key in the lock and lets Cat drop from his arms to the floor and shuts the door behind him and, after counting slowly to five in his head, looks out through the peep-hole. Graves stands for a full minute, smoking, then finally flicks the butt of his cigarette into the flowerbed and stalks away, shoulders tight around his ears.

-

Newt doesn’t notice anything different about him when he gets in. Or, if he does, he doesn’t mention it.

-

He goes to Graves’ flat at four am, sat on a little ledge that leaves him just hidden behind a post-box and a conveniently-placed shrub. He waits for Graves to leave and follows behind him. He does this every day for three days.

It’s possible that Graves knows he’s there. Credence thinks that this is a logical summation to make, considering Graves was smart enough to head up an entire MACUSA department and also is, presumably, not an idiot.

It’s possible that Graves knows he’s there, and lets Credence follow him anyway. Credence tries not to think too hard about that.

Graves, he surmises, does very little with his days. He goes to St James’ every day and feeds the pelican bits of his sandwich and so Credence sits about 20 meters off and watches. He goes to the same café every afternoon and orders a black coffee and sits and chain-smokes for an hour whilst flicking through a newspaper. Credence, the other side of the street, watches through the glass hidden behind his own paper.

On the fourth day, when Graves comes into the café, Credence is waiting for him.

Wordlessly, Graves sits down and smiles at the waitress and asks, very prettily, for two black coffees and the waitress blushes as she walks away, which Credence notices but Graves, somehow, misses completely. The neither of them speak until the coffee arrives.

When Graves wraps his fingers around the cup, as if to warm his hands, Credence finds himself copying the motion.

‘Hullo,’ Graves manages. Credence stares at his coffee. ‘What are you –’

‘Did you know?’ The question is out of Credence’s mouth before he can stop it. He sips his coffee too quickly and it burns the back of his throat, bitter and too-hot. Graves blinks, owlishly, for a moment, as if he were about to ask _know what._ And then –

‘No.’ Graves’ voice is softer than – than before. There had been a roughness to it but now it has more of a lilt, lighter. Gentler. ‘No, Credence. I didn’t know.’

‘What –’ he starts the sentence, and then stops it. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants to ask. He sips more of his coffee instead. It doesn’t get any better on the second try.

Graves is nodding, taking out some paper and tobacco and beginning to roll a cigarette, patiently. Slowly. Credence can’t stop watching his fingers.

‘If you were going to ask what I was doing all that time, Grindelwald kept me in a fucking _basement_.’ As he speaks, he brings the paper to his lips and licks it, slightly, and Credence has to look away. ‘So _no_. I didn’t know what was going on.’

_Ah._

_There it is._

Something in the back of his head, something silken and dark, is whispering to him. Graves is glaring at him from across the table, dark brows pulled together and suddenly he can feel his hand like a brand, a touch to his neck, the back of his head, a thumb dragging across his pressure point, across his mouth and _breath on his jaw, you’re_ special _Credence_ and wanting for the sake of wanting even as he feels as if he’s being torn apart from the inside out and –

‘Credence?’

He stares up at Graves. He’s tilted towards him across the table. Credence shifts back, aware now that his hands are trembling. He takes a sip of his coffee, again, for something to do, and winces when the cup rattles noisily against the saucer as he puts it down again.

‘D’you want some creamer?’

‘What?’ Credence snaps, almost irritable. He wants a drink. He wants a cigarette. He wants to feel a burn in his throat, wants to be apart from himself, numb and on fire all at once –

‘Maybe some sugar, too? Ma’am?’

A little jug of milk and some paper packets of sugar appear by his cup and he looks up to say _thank you_ but the waitress is already drifting past. Credence stares dumbly down at the table and lets Graves pull his cup across the table towards him, rip open two packets of sugar, spill a little milk in and push it back again.

Automatically, he tries the coffee. It’s better.

Graves picks up his cigarette, brings it to his mouth and lights it with a little click of his fingers. He cups his hands around the flame in the same way men out on the street would, protecting the flame against the wind. But here, he’s just masking the magic. It’s a small yet grandly audacious thing, and Credence feels his heart slam against his rib cage. A phantom ghost of a smell pricks his nose; metal and blood.

‘You been having nightmares?’ Graves asks, unexpectedly, catching him unawares enough that he nods, just once. Graves sniffs, shakes his head. ‘Me too.’

For the first time since he’d sat down, Graves seems to study him unabashedly. There had been staring and glaring but now Graves seems to be simply looking, taking in the dark circles under his eyes that Credence knows are there, like little purple bruises, and the unkempt hair and the exhaustion jittering down his spine.

‘You been sleeping at all?’

Credence shrugs.

‘That’ll be the Obscura,’ Graves nods, almost to himself. He seems to take comfort in speaking the same way Credence had, after everything had gone so wrong; filing the spaces, the silence. ‘Newt been working with you to fix that?’ Graves asks, speaking around his cigarette and Credence nods, once, cleanly. Newt has not been working with him to fix ‘that’; Newt hasn’t even mentioned the Obscura. Not once. Not even on the day where he and Credence had fought, over something small and petty, and Credence had blinked and an entire shelf of mugs had flung itself off the wall. Or the day where they’d gone to the flower market and it had been busy, so busy and someone smashed into his shoulder and snapped _watch it_ and an entire cart had careened over, as if some force of will had pushed it, and –

 _Oh_.

Graves is watching him.

Carefully, and slowly, he puts to the thought to the back of his mind. He will deal with that later. For now, he rests his chin in the crook of his hand and watches Graves back.

He looks somehow younger than before, although more tired. Slimmer, more gaunt, too. He seems so entirely different to the Graves that he knew – smaller, in spirit, less harsh, less demanding, less eager to take and to – to touch – that he almost wonders how the people he worked with didn’t notice.

Graves has smoked through one cigarette and pulls another one, sloppily rolled, from a tin. He lights up immediately and takes a long drag. Credence thinks the constant movement might be to hide the tremor in his hands. His clothes are ratty, a tad too big. There’s a fine scar just by his left eye that Credence is sure hadn’t been there before.

And there – just there –

‘What the _fuck_ are you doing?’ Graves explodes, his chair scraping noisily backwards against the tile of the café – but it’s too late.

Credence leans back, hand still out-stretched. There’s a smear of make up on his thumb. A purple bruise blossoms against Graves’ cheekbone, smudged by some sort of powder or cream Graves had put over it. Credence stares.

‘How long –' 

‘ _Credence_ ,’ Graves interrupts, a snap, and Credence watches the way he blinks, rapidly, staring down at the table. 

‘How long ago did they find you?’

Graves won’t look at him. The cigarette lies, abandoned, between his fingers. Credence is worried that the ash will drop and burn the table, or Graves.

He waits. It takes a moment, a moment where they sit and listen to the ragged draw of Graves’ breathing, where the clatter of the café seems to swell and lull around them, until finally;

‘I came to England straight away. I have – _had_ – an aunt here. It was somewhere to stay. Out of New York. The-the day after, Tina’s owl arrived. Telling me where you are. I wrote you, and –’

‘Two weeks,’ Credence interrupts. ‘They found you two weeks ago.’

Graves smiles. He looks exhausted. For some reason, it elicits a pang in Credence’s chest.

‘Around then, yes.’

‘So –' 

‘A year,’ Graves finishes. ‘Grindelwald had me locked up for a year. Give or take.’ 

Credence swallows. The next question is so, so selfish and it gets caught up in his throat, his gaze sliding to the side, watching the waitress bring someone a pot of tea as he begins, quietly;

‘So – we – you were never –’ 

‘No,’ Graves interrupts. ‘The other day, outside on the street – that was the first time we – that we met.’

Credence doesn’t understand the feeling in his stomach. Like he’s being picked apart, like someone stuck their hand inside of him and decided to twist everything up.

 Graves – Grindelwald, he supposes – had been kind. At first, at least. He had been sweet and kind and told him he was special, that he was important, that he was greater than the sum of his parts. The day they’d first met, Grindelwald had put a hand to his shoulder and it had felt like nothing he’d ever felt before. To be touched kindly. And later, when Graves – Grindelwald – he’s not even sure any more, just knows in his head it still looked like Graves, sounded like Graves – had brought his mouth close to Credence’s ear, so close his lips were practically pressed to the top of his jaw, Credence had just wanted him closer. Some deep, sinful part of him had wanted to be kissed, to be bitten and consumed just there, at the top of his jaw, just that little triangle of skin. That was all.

Graves’ hand touches his, just-barely, on the table. He leaps back as if he’s been stung.

‘Sorry, Credence, I –' 

‘I had just hoped,’ Credence starts, speaking so slowly, every word hand-picked as Graves falls silent, ‘I had just hoped that some of it was… Real. Just a little part of it. Any of it.’ 

He looks up. Graves is staring at him with those dark eyes the same way Miss Goldstein and Queenie and even Newt sometimes look at him.

Pity.

‘I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Mister Graves. Please don’t come to the house again.’

- 

He dreams of Graves that night. He dreams of fingers brushing over his and a mouth at his neck and Graves’s face splitting into two pieces and swallowing him whole and Graves’ finger tips scraping across his rib cage, just hard enough to hurt but still making his back curve and then _arch_ and then –

He wakes. He’s gasping, face flushed with heat.

Credence stares up at the ceiling. The ceiling stares back. He wants to scream and scream and scream until he runs out of breath and whatever’s inside him, coiled up in the pit of his stomach and the thrum of his heartbeat, consumes him entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Graves stays away.

Credence does not.

He knows better. He knows Newt suspects; the gaps between conversations grow longer until their meals are carried out in silence, Newt fiddling with his cutlery, flicking him glances across the table that Credence determinedly ignores.

He knows Graves is bad for him. Knows that he is drawn to him because the face is a link to all that came before. A touch. A mouth close to his. Fingers on his skin. Six weeks ago, Newt had brushed a hand across his shoulder blades – in comfort, or just in passing, Credence can’t remember – and he’d flinched halfway out of his skin.

He knows all this and more.

But the little block of flats draws him in like a beacon, and so he finds himself returning, again and again. Usually at night, or the early hours of the morning. He likes to see Graves just before sleep, or just after waking. Those times seem to frame him gently, wearing too-big sweaters, his eyes sleepy and huge.

The bruise on Graves’ cheekbone begins to fade, then disappears. His stubbles grows out a little longer, dashed with grey, and Credence wonders, absently, how old Graves really is. Grindelwald had made him seem older, somehow, as if he couldn’t quite fit into the lines of the his skin. Held himself differently, too; Graves still cuts an imposing figure, shoulders broad and strong, but, before, he had always seemed so sure. He had walked with purpose. Now, in these small hours, Graves wanders vaguely, flitting from the sink in his kitchen to his sitting room, curling around a book for a few minutes, going to the radio. He seems so small. Almost young.

The first time he sees Graves doing magic, his heart seems to get caught up in his throat and he forgets, momentarily, how to breathe. He’s watching Graves do the dishes, shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbow – and then stop, blink to himself. A little smile flickers across Graves’ mouth as he shakes his head to himself – dries his hand on a table cloth.

Credence finds himself leaning forward. He forces himself to move back.

Graves lifts his wand – then hesitates. Credence can’t begin to parse the motions, the false start as Graves gives a gentle flick of the wrist and then cuts himself off again. His lips move in a murmur. Credence, absurdly, wonders for a moment why he can’t hear the words, has to remind himself that there’s a pane of glass – a whole street – an entire chasm between the two of them.

But then all of that’s forgotten, because the dishes are lifting themselves from the soapy water, a sponge swiping across them. His breath rushes out of his chest. Graves saunters away from the sink, flicks the lights out. A door opens and Credence can just see, caught up in a thread of light spilling from another room, the dishes, settling themselves down on a rack to dry.

Unbidden, his mother’s voice creeps up the back of his spine, into the pit of his skull. _There are witches, festering in our city. They’re dangerous. Their magic will destroy us._

The flat goes entirely dark and he stands, legs abruptly shaky. He won’t go back. He swears.

 

(Except he does. Just once more.

It’s three o clock in the morning and when he’d snuck out Newt had been sat at the kitchen table, leaning over some notes. A pretence. He’d been waiting for him; Credence could tell. Confirming a suspicion that had leeched into every corner of the flat.

Newt had stared at him and he’d stared back and Newt had looked so breathlessly sad that Credence, in that moment, had hated himself. Had wanted to crawl back into bed and be good – be better. To sit with Cat and read his books and just be simply content.

But he hadn’t. He’d put his coat on and told Newt he would be back better. And he’d left.

He can’t sleep, feels as if everything – all the bad thoughts, the black smoke that he knows lives just under his skin, all the pain and magic and his mother’s voice – are buzzing under his skin like nasty insects. Burrowing into his brain.

So he walks. And he ends up at Graves’ apartment. The place is dark but he sits on the little wall, out of habit.

And then, absurdly, he stands. He crosses the street. Somewhere, distantly, a cat – or maybe a fox – yowls. The curtains are open – as they always are.

Something tangled up inside him wonders if Graves leaves his curtains open on purpose. Wonders if –

_Stop that._

He’s so close, now. Close enough that he can put his hands to the glass, if he wanted to. He does, feels the coolness of it, feels close to – to something. Something he cannot explain, cannot begin to understand, isn’t sure he would want to if he could.

But, for a moment, he feels close to that something and the buzzing under his skin and in his head stops. He shuts his eyes. It’s nice to be empty, just for a moment. Empty and at peace.

A light snaps on.

 _Of course it does,_ something at the back of his head whispers cruelly.

The light is blinding and he stumbles back, blinking furiously, heart thrumming up in his throat. He goes to turn –

Too late.

Graves is staring at him.

He stares back.

 _This again._  

For a moment they stay, suspended. And then Graves steps forwards and although the glass is thick he can see the way his mouth moves, the way his lips form the word. _Credence_.

And there it is. That same odd pang in his chest that he’d felt when he’d seen Newt at the kitchen table, bathed in candle light, worry stamped plainly across the lines of his face.

 _Stay_ , the pang in his chest had told him. It says the same thing now.

But Graves is stepping forward, saying his name again and Credence doesn’t – he can’t – he _won’t_ –

This time his body doesn’t pull him back to the apartment. Doesn’t respond to him. Instinct refuses to kick in.

Which means this time –

_This time._

This time, he has to look Graves in the eye and turn away. This time, there is no adrenaline, no terror. Just an aching melancholy that permeates his whole being. This time he has to walk back through the cold and has to let himself back into the flat with fingers numb with cold. This time Newt doesn’t come out to meet him. This time, the flat is dark and empty and when he climbs back into his bed, the sheets are cold.)

He doesn’t go to Graves’ apartment again.

Instead, quite by accident, Graves comes to him. 

-

A month slides by. Then another one. Suddenly, it’s winter, and the chill reminds him of New York, of standing in the rain and snow trying to pass out leaflets.

Newt is hiding something. He jitters around the apartment, speaks far too-fast or not at all, spends every spare moment endlessly cleaning anything he can get his hands on. Credence isn’t sure what it is Newt is hiding – and, he supposes, that is rather the point – but Newt smiles every now and then when he thinks Credence isn’t looking, so he hopes it’s a good thing.

The days are beginning to stretch even as they shorten, Credence thinks, and there’s little to differentiate between a Monday and a Friday, until the week becomes an amorphous mess he struggles to sort through.

Queenie, in a letter that’s uncharacteristically short, tells him he should try helping Newt with his creatures more. He likes that she calls them that; creatures. Others would call them beasts – he would have too, a year ago. When he first arrived, he’d refused to so much as touch the case.

But Newt’s fondness is infectious and so he’d slipped himself inside, followed Newt into this strange little world he’d somehow built. Something had welled up in him, like a bubble that rose up his chest and into his throat, made it hard to swallow. He’d shut his eyes, felt dry heat on his face and wondered what Credence, a year ago, would have made of this. Credence, who saw black and white, drab adverts in the paper for holidays in places he would never, in his existence, have visited. Credence, who read Kipling and Burnett and dreamed of India, who allowed himself small, wistful dreams of adventures and fantasy. Credence, who wanted for the sake of wanting and now, in little ways, has things for the sake of having them, and takes because he can.

Newt wakes him early, asks for help with feeding – but they rush, Newt is jangled and all over the place, and when something strange whose name he can’t remember scratches them, neither of them notice.

-

Newt asks him to go fetch some milk from the shop and when he returns Tina and Queenie are there. 

Tina’s chirping an awkward _surprise!_ and Newt’s gone bright red in the corner and when he thinks, instinctively, _so_ this _is_ _what’s had Newt all worked up_ Queenie’s laugh erupts seemingly before she can suppress it. Newt, if it were possible, flushes an even brighter red and, when Credence lets his eyes slide over, he sees that Tina has gone a little pink too.

When Queenie envelopes him in a hug, he can practically feel Tina and Newt tensing from their respective sides of the room. Somehow, though, he doesn’t mind it. Queenie is soft and a little bony and when she presses a noisy kiss to the top of his head he can’t help but laugh a touch.

The two of them are staying for a little while in a hotel close by – when he asks why, Tina shares a look with Newt over the top of his head then says briskly; _President’s orders_. The two women watch him strangely, closely until finally, he meets their gazes and refuses to look away. He wonders, absently, if the two women have been sent to keep an eye on him, his behaviour marked as strange and dangerous – abruptly, he corrects himself, blanks the thought from his head. Not quick enough. Something in Queenie softens and after that she doesn’t stare.

They drain the last dregs from the tea pot and Queenie pinches a crumb and licks it off her thumb. The apartment is warm and a sleepy, Tina speaking softly to Newt, Queenie watching the pair as if she were watching a tennis match – and, for the first time in a long while, Credence thinks that if he slept now he perhaps wouldn’t dream.

‘Credence?’

The murmur makes him jump a little and when he looks across the table, the trio are staring at him.

‘Sorry, I –’

‘Do you think you could fetch me something?’ Newt asks, slipping a piece of paper across the table. Queenie’s gaze flicks irritably towards Newt. Tina won’t look at any of them, staring determinedly down at her plate. He can’t sort through the motions of them, so he just stands, takes the paper, nodding. 

‘Of course –’

‘It’s a little way across town, it might take a little while. But the fresh air will be good for you.’ Newt laughs, a crooked, sweet thing. He won’t look at him either – but Newt struggles with eye contact, Credence has noticed, likes to look just above someone’s left ear or the sweep of hair across their forehead. Nothing too unusual.

The cold is bracing and he gets almost lost, Newt’s instructions vague and confusing. The warmth of the apartment has left him and London seems unfriendly, today, a few people bumping into his shoulder as they hurry past. The address brings him to a shop in a muggle street that he passes three time before he spots it; his eyes seem to want to skip over it, moving to the bakers to the right, or the bookshop to the left. He can feel his eyes go wide as soon as he steps through the door; everything is dark, the counters and display cases black like liquor. The sound of shifting feathers and he twists; something a little like a bird and a little like a cat perches on top of a bookshelf, staring down at him with wide, yellow eyes. A woman is stood with a tall gentleman in sleek robes, such a dark blue they could be black, little constellations picked out in silver thread; as he walks past they stare up from the book they’re both leant over. 

The package he collects is innocuous, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, and the man behind the counter makes him show the paper Newt gave him, studies it closely with a magnifying glass three times before, reluctantly, he pushes the package over the counter.

As he leaves, someone mutters _squib_ under their breath – the man in the robes, he thinks. He doesn’t know what it means, but it sticks, barbed, between his ribs.

-

The apartment is quiet when he gets back but Cat is there to greet him at the door. He curls around his feet, chirping at him until he acquiesces and puts some food down.

The kitchen table, which had been set for tea before, is now littered with empty plates, a half-empty glass of wine, a dirty napkin. He must have been gone so long that Newt and the Goldsteins sat down to dinner without him.

Four plates. He takes them to the sink and sets them down and realises, absently, _four plates._   

Voices drift down the corridor.

Quietly, he slips out of his coat and pads to the doorway. He think he can make out Tina, arguing with someone – a low voice. Male. The palms of his hands are beginning to prickle. He treads down the corridor. The door to Newt’s study is propped open just a little. Enough for him to peek through.

He’s not surprised when he sees Graves, sat in Newt’s office chair.

It hurts, of course. To see that face. In the place he has made his home. It feels invasive, as if Graves had opened up his ribcage and stepped into his body, too-close and suffocating. Tina is perched on the desk next to him, speaking quick and furious.

Queenie, curled up into a too-big arm chair, practically swallowed by the thing, snaps a look towards the door. Everyone’s gaze follows. Queenie doesn’t stop chewing on her thumbnail as she watches him.

He takes a breath. Graves meets his eye, then looks towards his hands. Credence watches them shake.

‘Credence, I –’

‘You could have told me.’ He fights to keep the quake out of his throat.

‘Credence –’

‘I’m not a child.’ He can’t look at Graves. He won’t.

‘I know.’ Newt’s voice is soft. Something odd and ugly curls in Credence’s gut. Tina watches him like a hawk. ‘I know, Credence, I –’

‘I’m going to –’ he stops, swallows past the lump in his throat. _You’re going to what?_ He doesn’t finish the sentence.

‘It’s alright, Credence,’ Queenie smiles. There’s hurt behind her eyes and for a moment he whooshes in a breath, wonders if it’s aimed at him – but she shakes her head, just fractionally, and something unclamps in his throat. ‘We brought a book for you – I forgot to give it to you earlier. It’s on the kitchen table.’

‘Thank you,’ he bobs a nod, turns on his heel, listens to it squeak against the floorboards in the dead silence of the room and feels a cringe run through his entire body.

-

He won’t cry. He refuses to cry.

So he sits in the window seat of Newt’s living room and refuses to cry. As he’d walked away, an argument pitched at a hiss had started – Queenie, he thinks. He wonders if she objected, to Graves coming here. Or to not telling Credence. He hopes – he hopes that she had faith in him, had wanted to tell him, had believed he was strong enough –

The words on the page blur, swimming together. Furiously, he swipes at his eyes. He refuses to cry.

The world outside seems a little friendlier now, softened slightly through a pane of glass. The sky has darkened, gone a dusky pink, clouds smeared in bright violets and oranges. A group of kids are playing with a stray dog on the road below, throwing sticks for it. A memory rushes through him, barely-there and whisper-thin; playing on a street. A woman in a dark dress calling him for dinner. She smiles as he barrels through the doorway –

A knock on the door.

‘I’m fine, Queenie,’ he calls, tiredly – but the door opens nonetheless.

‘Not Queenie,’ Graves comments awkwardly. ‘Sorry.’

He feels exposed like this. Sprawled across the window seat, book in his lap, shoes abandoned on the floor. It’s too comfortable, too familiar for such a foreign intrusion, Graves hovering by the doorway. Reluctantly, he tucks in on himself, swings round so that his back is to the window.

It’s taken as an invitation; one he didn’t intend. But Graves is sat next to him now and Credence can feel the warmth radiating off of his body. His arm brushes against Credence’s and a shiver rushes through him.

‘Are you cold?’ Graves asks, too-loud in the quiet of the room, and to Credence’s horror he begins to shrug out of his jacket and Credence has to stay his hand, harried and abrupt.

‘No, no – I’m fine.’ Graves pulls the jacket back on.

He swings his feet as Graves fiddles with a loose thread on the button of his shirt cuff and finally Credence realises Graves isn’t going to be the first to speak. For a moment, he takes the opportunity to study the man, taking stock; he still looks tired, still looks gaunt. Still looks nothing and everything like Grindelwald, all at once. The bruises have faded completely now, at least.

‘Why are you here?’

The question seems to surprise Graves – as if he hadn’t been expecting Credence to speak first either, had been desperately grasping for something to say all this time – but he answers, quickly;

‘Tina and Queenie needed – _wanted_ ,’ he corrects himself hurriedly, and Credence allows himself to wonder at the slip-up, ‘to visit me, and they weren’t sure if it would be safe to go to my apartment. So I came here.’ An agonising pause; Graves is still studying the loose thread, trying to wrap his finger around it so he can pull it off, fumbling it each time. ‘I’m sorry, Credence –’

‘It’s fine,’ he interrupts. Too sharp. There’s a question weighing on his chest and he forces himself to put it into words. He’s not sure if the rest of them would answer him honestly. Somehow, inexplicably, he expects the truth from Graves. ‘They’re here for me, aren’t they?’ For the first time since he sat down, Graves looks up at Credence. His gaze is soft. ‘Tina and Queenie, they came to see me. To check up on me. Tina told me that the President sent them –’ at this Graves blinks, a few times, his chest sucking in and Credence tries to ignore it even as he barrels on; ‘and it’s because I’m dangerous, I suppose, or –’

‘Credence.’ Graves’ voice is firm. ‘They’re not here to check up on you.’

‘Oh?’

‘They’re here to check up on _me.’_

‘Oh.’

‘They haven’t said it in such plain terms, but – I’ve been wanting to go back to New York since I arrived here,’ Graves tells him. It feels like a confession. He returns to the thread. ‘President Piquery is – reluctant, to say the least.’ He pauses. Scrubs a hand through his hair. ‘Probably quite rightly.’

Credence isn’t sure what to say so he says;

‘I’m sorry.’ Graves huffs out a laugh.

‘Nothing to be sorry for.’

‘I know,’ Credence tells him, forcing the words out. His throat feels like treacle, each sentence getting stuck. ‘But I am anyway.’

Graves nods. He’s still fiddling with the thread and the constant motion is beginning to crawl under Credence’s skin until, finally, he reaches over, pulls the thread sharply so it’s a little longer and then snaps it off entirely.

Graves blinks at him.

‘I’m sorry we didn’t tell you I would be here. It was – foolish.’

Credence’s chest stings. The honesty is too-bare, too much, and so he just nods, curls in on himself a little. As his head drops, his hair falls in his eyes and when he raises a hand to tuck it away Graves is there, gently taking his wrist in his hand. Credence lets him.

‘You’ve hurt yourself,’ Graves says, simply. Credence stares at his own palm. The grip on his wrist feels like fire, even as Graves barely touches him, the pads of his fingers tickling against the sensitive skin of his inner wrist.

‘One of Newt’s –’

But Graves is sweeping his hand across Credence’s palm and suddenly he’s off the window seat, putting as much space between he and Graves as he can. Magic tingles under his skin. He clutches his hand to his chest, breathless.

‘Credence –’

‘What did you –’ he cuts himself off, stares down at the palm of his hand; the skin is clear and smooth, the scratches gone. His heart slams angrily against his rib cage, adrenaline coursing through him. When he looks up again, Graves is by his side, hovering hesitantly.

‘Credence –’ he says again, so soft, so almost-tender, and Credence can’t – can’t bare it – so when he takes a step back and Graves follows he goes on the offensive instead, steps forward and shoves him, solidly.

‘I am not some – some broken _thing_ that needs to be fixed!’ He shouts, and he can hear whatever conversation from Newt’s office being cut off – but Graves is just staring at him, eyes wide and hurt, so he shoves him again, because he is angry and he can and because it feels good. Graves barely stumbles. ‘Why did you – why did you _do that?’_

‘Because you were hurt.’

He says it as if it means nothing.

The room is quiet. His breath pours in and out of him, shaking through his chest. He wants to scream. He wants to tear Graves apart – but the flush of anger is already dissipating, leaving him exhausted and numb.

‘Did – did he do that for you too?’ He doesn’t need to specify who. Credence nods. Graves takes a step towards him – stops when Credence flinches away. When he speaks again, he sounds resigned. ‘I’m… I’m so sorry Credence. I won’t come again.’

He sounds like he means it.

_He sounds like he means it –_

‘Graves.’ The older man is at the doorway – but he pauses, hand on the doorway, looks towards him. Credence forces himself to meet his eye, to lift his chin, forces his voices to be strong and not waver when he asks; ‘could you teach me?’

Graves allows himself a moment’s silence.

‘Magic?’ Credence nods. Forces himself to not let the hunger show through. Graves’ lips quirk up a touch. ‘I don’t think Newt would approve. Tina either.’

Credence watches him.

‘Queenie would like it.’

‘Well.’ Graves’ smile is wider now, but it doesn’t feel as if he’s being laughed at. ‘We couldn’t disappoint Queenie.’

‘No.’

Graves nods, a gentle incline of the head. The door clicks shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come follow me on tumblr at judest-francis and on twitter on @peedonthefloor cry abt creedence w me thx 
> 
> This took way longer than expected because I’m just in writers block trash hell atm. But there’s gonna be more of it than I thought at first, so yay! I really enjoyed writing the last scene with Graves acting like he’s on a terrible first date.   
> Also I got some really lovely comments on this but two in particular were super long and really engaged with what I was writing (thank you so much manonde and Monster Kid!) and it was amazing and super inspiring and helped me keep going! So thank you so much!  
> Also also if you’re looking for fic recs check out my bookmarks!   
> Also also ALSO (last thing) I wrote a little drabble on why I write Credence the way I do so if you’re interested hmu and I’ll pop it up on my writing blog (idekman-ao3)

**Author's Note:**

> second part on its way.  
> lemme know what you think. hmu on tumblr im judest-francis.  
> i spent an inordinately long amount of time double checking what kind of street lights were used in the 20s so that's fun.  
> fun fact on the first draft of this i managed to spell grindelwald's name wrong in all fourteen instances of its use.


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